Report Criticizes U.N. Resolution On Lebanon War

UNITED NATIONS — The implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel receives "mostly negative" marks in a new Israeli report published Sunday, which marked the first anniversary of the end of the conflict.

The report by the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, a Web site maintained by veterans of Israel's intelligence community, comes as the Security Council is planning to renew the mandate of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon. The force is empowered to implement Security Council Resolution 1701. The Web site's top executive, Reuven Ehrlich, told The New York Sun yesterday that in its first year, the most significant achievement of the resolution, and of Unifil, has been to prevent Hezbollah from launching any significant attack against Israel, keeping the border largely calm.

But this achievement can easily be "eroded," Mr. Ehrlich said.

The rearming of Hezbollah by Syria and Iran — most significantly with a rocket arsenal that could hit Israel's major population centers — means the calm could be interrupted "in one stroke" if Iran, Syria, or Hezbollah decides to end it.

"Hezbollah's rearming is irreversible," Mr. Ehrlich said, "and this fact should be given much more weight than any other" in assessing the resolution's success. Therefore, his assessment "clearly tends to be mostly negative," he said.

With a beefed-up mandate and 13,000 troops, Unifil was deployed in Hezbollah-controlled areas after the Security Council passed the resolution on August 11, 2006. One of its top provisions was the maintenance of a weapons-free southern Lebanon.

According to the new report, however, "The Lebanese army and Unifil do not actually enforce the security measures stipulated by Security Council Resolution 1701 for the area south of the Litani River."

Nevertheless, as the Security Council is set to begin deliberating Thursday, diplomats involved in the negotiations said neither Beirut nor the countries that contribute troops to the force — led by Italy, France, and Spain — is seeking major changes in Unifil's mandate.

Lebanon's government "is satisfied with the activity of Unifil and the level of cooperation with the Lebanese armed forces and looks forward to the continuation of its mandate in pursuit of peace and stability," Prime Minister Siniora wrote to Secretary-General Ban in June.

The Lebanese army twice has seized weapon deliveries to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, including a February 8 confiscation of Katyusha rockets. But according to the new Israeli report, these seizures were "exceptional events and not part of a comprehensive policy which is strictly enforced."

The Lebanese army "avoids dismantling Hezbollah's military networks and does not take effective action against the smuggling of weapons to Hezbollah," the report says.

At times, it has even shown the "willingness to collaborate with Hezbollah on the basis of its unwritten rules."

In contrast to its "laxity in dealing with Hezbollah," the report cites the Lebanese army's willingness to confront Palestinian Arab radicals of the Fatah al-Islam group in the northern refugee camp Nahr el-Bared. The Qaeda-affiliated militants, however, have inflicted heavy losses on the army; as such, it is "not at all clear if the Lebanese government will continue its efforts to attack global jihad strongholds in other parts of Lebanon," the report says.

As even Mr. Ban has reported, the illegal flow of weapons across the Syrian border to Palestinian Arab camps and to Hezbollah continues. Unifil, however, has no jurisdiction on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and the United Nations may assist in border enforcement only at the behest of Beirut, which has declined to ask for such assistance.

Despite its boasts, Hezbollah has suffered major blows to its Beirut stronghold in Dahiya, as well as to its deployment in southern Lebanon in last year's war, Mr. Ehrlich told the Sun.

The renewal of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal, along with its reconstruction of tunnels, bunkers, and fortifications in the south since then, however, add up to "a ticking time bomb," he said.

"On the eve of the second Lebanon war Hezbollah had more than 20,000 rockets of various ranges," the new report says, adding, "In our assessment, today Hezbollah is capable of firing a similar number of rockets at Israel." Those rockets can reach "civilian population centers from the northern border to the center of the country."

The report is available on the Web site www.terrorism-info.org.il, which is maintained by the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, a think tank made up of veterans of the external intelligence service, known as Mossad; its internal counterpart, Shabak, and the army's intelligence arm, Aman.